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A vacation cruise, a sail, a day at the beach spent listening to the rhythm of pounding surf upon sand. We appreciate our oceans but we forget how much we depend upon them. Without water, there would be no life on earth.

It’s easy to imagine the Arctic as the literal polar opposite of the Antarctic, a mirror image of snow and glaciers located on the northernmost part of the globe. In fact, the Arctic is not only distinctly different in terms of landscape and environment from its southern counterpart, it varies greatly in terms of its own topography, ecology and wildlife.

Lightning lit up an inky sky as we sailed through the Aegean Sea, delivery crew for an X-Yacht from Marmaris, Turkey to Barcelona, Spain. Sailing through one storm cell after another, thunder vied with a disturbing sound: metallic clanging.

Sailing lore had it that the Galapagos Islands did not exist, they were so often obscured by intermittent fog that they would appear and reappear to ships on the horizon as if they were part of an Enchanted otherworld. The nickname has stuck, and now it is the astonishing array of wildlife and the surreal desert and volcanic landscapes that leave visitors feeling as if they are under a spell.

I am told that on my first visit to the beach as a baby my response upon seeing the ocean was to take off running towards the water. Apparently I made it waist deep into the Atlantic before some guy managed to get a hold of me.